Goodbye, Mr. Chips

Japan – Day 4

My last day (only the morning) in Japan was “basically” uneventful. I had said goodbye to TO the previous evening as we hugged in the middle of the hotel lobby. His wife, evidently worried about my health, had sent me some cough drops…

…and life-preserving water.

I strolled down the side street…

…to my usual coffee shop for a light breakfast.

I returned to the hotel, checked out, and headed off toward the bus stop where I would catch the commuter bus to Narita Airport.

As I casually sauntered once again down the side street, confident I would remember the bus stop’s location where TO picked me up 3 days earlier, I once again noted the cleanliness of the bicycles (and everything else) in this part of the world. Almost all the bicycles I saw in Japan had these built in (actually “on”) bike locks.

In Beijing, most small deliveries are made by little tricycle carts (which I’ll write about in greater detail some day). I saw no such carts in this Japanese city, and small deliveries seem to be accomplished with these little vans.

Note the guy walking behind the van, wearing a face mask.

I saw several people here wearing these masks, even though the air was crystal clear and pollution was near zero. I was told once that Japanese people wear these masks when they have a cold in order not to spread their germs.

By almost any standard, I have a good sense of direction and a good memory for geographic landmarks, which is why I knew I could easily retrace my steps to the bus stop that I took with TO 3 days earlier. I was wrong.

I got to the center of town where there are many bus stops scattered around the neighborhood. They’re all numbered and I knew which one I needed. I wandered around for about 20 minutes, trying to make sense of the number-location relationship. I started to get a little worried, so, using sign language, I asked a young man for help. He walked 3 blocks in the direction opposite to the one he was originally going to personally hand me off to the correct bus stop.

I was early, so I sat on a little wall and watched people. As it is in Beijing, these bus stops have official guides to help people find the right bus,…

…but the meaning of their team name eludes me.

Almost every sidewalk I have seen in both China and Japan has a special ridged brick path for use by blind people. In China, I’ve thus far seen only one blind person, and he was led by a caretaker. This is the first unaccompanied blind person I have seen in Asia.

Anyone want to speculate on the reason for this observation (excluding, of course, blindness on the part of the observer)?

In China, almost no one wears helmets. (I’m one of four in Beijing, a city of 20 million.) Parents haul their toddlers and little kids around in bike seats over the back wheel. No helmets. In Japan, I saw 5 or 6 parents hauling little kids on their bikes. All children, but no adults, had helmets.

While waiting for the bus, I had the revelation that I might get a little hungry on the 3-hour bus ride, so I went into a nearby grocery and picked up a rice ball wrapped in seaweed. Being the consummate health-conscious consumer, I was relieved to note the full list of ingredients on the label.

More people started arriving at the bus stop, so I knew I hadn’t long to wait. As at other bus stops, people lined up in an orderly fashion without pushing or trying to be first.

The bus ride was comfortable and relaxing, and I took a number of inconsequential photos (aka out of focus) through the window. When I saw this wire structure, I first thought it was some sort of electric grid.

Then it occurred to me that, as it was in Japan, it might be a large baseball batting cage or an enclosed golf driving range. ¿Quien sabe?

As you may have guessed, about 5 minutes into the trip I voraciously attacked my rice ball. There was stuff inside. I re-examined the label but to this day I don’t know if the filling was animal, vegetable, or mineral – or something else. (Where’s Aristotle when we need him?)

I miss TO and I think of him often. Here’s to hoping we see each other again soon.

保罗

Jolly Green Giant

Summertime and the living is… Mosquitoes! Last summer Tong Jing gave me a mosquito trap for my room that works by chemical attractant.

I went to the little shop where she bought it to get a refill for the chemical but found that the shop had been demolished. I went to Carrefour to get the chemical but they didn’t have anything like it, so I bought a couple UV traps.

I needed some small storage jars so I went looking for them. One of the things I dislike about Carrefour is that they move things around a lot, so it’s hard to find things, even if you’ve found them once. I eventually found the small storage jar aisle with a large selection.

Regardless of their color or design, they were all about $3 each. Except one, which was $1.25. Seeing no difference from the others, I bought 4 of the cheap ones. When I got home, I discovered what I think is the reason for the discount.

One of the things I miss about the U.S is cheese, so I always cruise the cheese aisle at Carrefour for discounts. You can recognize these because they take two of the same item and wrap them together to be sold for the price of 1. This is a double-wrapped feta cheese:

They do this when the expiration date has passed, of course, but with cheese I’m not worried about that. I made up for the discounted feta by buying a small piece of my favorite bleu cheese for $10!

Beijing, and China in general, is loaded with fruit. The Chinese eat a lot of it, and most of them are careful to eat it on an empty stomach for health purposes. This fruit fetish evidently does not extend to lemons because it’s actually quite hard to find lemons in Beijing. The street markets rarely have them, and the supply at the supermarkets is meager. Still, I needed to have my salad with lemon and olive oil, so I picked up these 5 tiny lemons (2-inch diameter) for $4.

The dearth of lemons in Beijing has forced me to resort to bottled lemon juice in a can.

Beijing does have the largest green beans I’ve ever seen. All the markets carry these large beans; I’ve seen no small ones.

Exiting Carrefour, I was reminded of one of the things I love about China: the colorful clothing.

保罗

And Then There Were None

Most days I go to the little park at Renmin University to have a cigar and read. I have enough material to write an entire book about the people that frequent this place. No kidding. For a while I thought I would accumulate enough stuff so I could write a comprehensive blog post about it, but (1) now I have way too much stuff, and (2) my wife says my posts are too long already. But I’m much too lazy to sit and write a book about anything – at least until I become physically incapacitated and can’t ride my bike to the nearest restaurant.

Many months ago this guy named Douglas (now Jingjing) sat down next to me and started talking English.

Since then we’ve been good friends, and we meet most days at the park. I try to arrive at the park about 3:00 because that’s when he usually arrives to visit his parents who are taken out for fresh air (now THERE’S a laugh) every day except when it’s raining.

Jingjing and I talk a lot of politics, current events, education, China, America, his son in Philadelphia, etc. We enjoy each other’s company and stay until about 5:00.

About a month ago he asked me to do him a favor: Would I please meet in the park for several days with the daughter of a friend of his to help her improve her English? I said sure, and for the next several weeks, Helen and I met and simply talked in English. She is 23 and just graduated from Tsinghua University in computer science and she was going to leave China for New York for a couple months. Her English needed a little work, but just talking helped improve it significantly.

In the photo above, Helen is on the left. The woman on the right is another friend of Jingjing’s who tagged onto the English lessons. These women introduced me to one of their friends who is a graduate student at Renmin getting a Ph.D. in logic. Xiaowen did not want her picture taken,…

…but she didn’t have much choice when she was eating some dumplings from the nearby dumpling shack.

Helen’s mother is a high level person in a cosmetics company here, and every time Helen came for her English lesson, she’d bring me a little gift. I kept telling her that I didn’t need anything, but Jingjing told me this is the custom.

In the photo above, the white box contains special soap, the red can has tea, the small gray box has shaving cream, and the large gray box has an anti-aging system for men. (Did they also deliver a message with that last one?)

For a while I was the epitome of the social butterfly. Then, at the beginning of August, Helen left for New York. The other woman stopped showing up, and Xiaowen’s school session is beginning. Simultaneous with those departures Jingjing went to his vacation house on the coast. Though I don’t socialize too much with the teachers, I do have (had) four pretty good friends here. Unfortunately, one went to a conference, another moved to New York, a third went to England for a while, and the fourth returned to her home town for August.

Unless your math is REALLY bad, you’ve figured out that I now sit in the park alone. Occasionally a young boy will come up and stare at me, silently, from 6 inches away.

Jingjing will eventually come back from the coast. Here’s hoping his parents, aged 94 and 98, remain healthy enough for their “fresh air” excursions for at least one more year.

When I first came here, sitting in the park alone was just fine. Now that I’m back to that (at least temporarily), it seems insufficient. Joni Mitchell: “Don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone; paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”

保罗

Everything Must Change

Before I had a real job, I used to tape the Sunday jazz shows on WPFW. I used my reel-to-reel tape recorder, and then transferred the songs I wanted to cassette tapes so I could listen to them in the car (and to eliminate the DJ’s talking). All cassettes were labeled carefully and logged in my music database (which now includes about 7,000 CDs!).

When I started my first real job at EPA in Crystal City, VA, I was driving in one day and heard this song by guitarist George Benson (in my view, the only decent thing Benson ever produced). Both the words and singer were powerful, but the DJ had not announced the name of the singer, so this information was missing from my cassette (and database, of course).

Driven by a compulsion to know the singer, I went upstairs to the big office and, with my usual racial acumen, found a tall, black girl whom I barely knew and asked her if she would come down to the garage and listen to a singer to see if she knew who this singer was. She looked at me as if I were crazy (a trait I’m not prepared to deny, either then or now), but said OK.

We went down 11 floors to the garage, found my car, and sat in the front seat while I searched the cassette for the song. I said the song was great and she would love this guy’s voice, too. I finally found it, played a minute or two, and she looked at me again as if I were crazy, then laughed: “That’s no guy; that’s Nina Simone.”

I now have most of Nina’s CDs. This song has been recorded by many people, but no one comes close to Nina on this one.

There’s so little in life you can be sure of
Except that rain comes from the clouds
Sunlight from the sky
And hummingbirds do fly

The young becomes the old
And mysteries do unfold
For that’s the way of time
Nothin’, no one remains unchanged
Everything must change.

(FYI: The song is on her CD entitled Baltimore, which also has nice versions of Judy Collins’ “My Father” and, for all you Southern Baptists, “Balm in Gilead.”)

OK, to the point: I’m writing this on August 26, 2013, the 1-year anniversary of my arrival in China with the goal of changing the entire educational culture of this country. (OK, laugh if you want to.) It’s also the day I was supposed to return home. Sadly, I have not yet achieved my goal, and the school has asked me to stay another year. (Actually, they ask me every week if I would consider staying at least 3 more years.) I have agreed to one more year in residence here; after that, if we work out an arrangement suitable to all parties, I’ll live in Virginia and commute.

Don’t misunderstand: I’M READY TO COME HOME!!!! All the novelty has evaporated into the 700+ PM2.5 sky. The few things I’ve mentioned that bug me (spitting, rude drivers, etc.) are bugging me more each day and I’m becoming more obstinate in my reactions to these Beijing quirks, even as I’ve adapted more easily to other cultural differences.

But I’ve been given a rare opportunity to actually effect change here, and after a year of piddling around, the Cammer approach to teaching is starting to take hold, and the Administration wants me to help complete this metamorphosis. If the changes take hold here at this special school, it will have a strong impact on the rest of the country. I regret that I cannot give you the details in writing of what I’m doing, but those are the restrictions I’m working under. C’est la vie.

The good news is that you now have one more year to come visit me in Beijing. I hope you do.

Speaking of visitors, I was walking from my dorm to the cafeteria for lunch a few days ago, stopped to chat with one of the passing teachers, and a guy approaches me tentatively. He looked like one of the school’s seniors. I knew his face looked familiar (no, they don’t really all look alike) but it seemed out of context. It turned out to be George Liang, one of my TJ students who is now sophomore at Harvard. He was here teaching neurobiology at a summer camp for high school students. It was truly exciting to see him and his mile-wide smile, and we had a little tea a couple days later, just before he returned to the U.S.

I want to thank my family and friends for their support and understanding through all this, knowing that at times I’m like a pit bull when facing a difficult challenge. This challenge is particularly daunting because all processes here are interdependent and many of the changes have to be simultaneously implanted into the students, teachers, parents, and administrators – like a jigsaw puzzle, having only a few pieces in place allows the picture to fall apart.

Incidentally, the school must have decided to celebrate my 1-year anniversary because the Internet has been down for the last 24 hours. As I write this it’s off and I have no information (nor does the dorm manager) on when it will be up again. (Sigh!)

保罗

Teahouse of the August Moon

When I was a junior in high school, I was sitting next to Kristy Kime in English class one day and she asked me if I had ever thought of trying out for a play. I said no and that that I had no interest in doing so. After some persuading on her part (all done in English class, of course), I agreed to think it over. So she got me a script and read the other parts while I read the part of Sakini-san, a Japanese servant in the play. It was one of the leads and was the part played by Marlon Brando in the movie. No one was more surprised than I when I got the part. One of the main things I learned from the director, the Japanese drama teacher Mr. Nakano, was that you had to speak unnaturally loud when on stage. He was a very intelligent and demanding teacher.

Japan – Day 3

This is my last full day in Japan, and it was as wonderful as the previous two, though certainly quite different.

I loafed around in the morning. TO arrived a little before noon so we could watch his son on TV. His son has a new quiz show for which he is the host. I videotaped the show and one day will find a way to get him the DVD. (Communication between China and Japan is tenuous on the best days.) Here he is with the first guest (uh, the son is on the left):

After the show, we took off for lunch, passing through quiet neighborhoods with residents on bicycles.

We arrived at this restaurant…

…and I was pleased to see it was a sushi place.

While we ate our appetizer clam soup,…

…we (TO) figured out (with a little help from the hostess) the ordering screen.

You order right on the screen, and then the sushi arrives on the serpentine conveyor belt, and a little bell sounds and a light flashes informing you that your order is approaching. You’d better pay attention because the belt doesn’t stop and you may miss your dish. If you do, you don’t end up paying for it because, like most places in this genre, they count the plates (which are color-coded) to calculate your bill.

We ate until we were satiated, and TO, unusually, ate almost as much as I did.

As we left the restaurant I saw an unusual license plate, but I have since forgotten its meaning.

We took a taxi to the outskirts of this city. TO was looking for a Buddhist temple in the basement of which an acquaintance of his had his art on display. We got out and wandered around the neighborhood a little,…

…until we found, with the help of some neighborhood kids, the stairway to heaven (or whatever).

It was a small temple,…

…with the requisite resting places in front.

The artist and I posed for a picture (one of the top things in the world I hate to do).

TO and the artist had a lively discussion (in Japanese, of course), though it was uncharacteristically demonstrative, punctuated by wil gesticulations.

Meanwhile, I wandered about the collection. Not bad.

The artist and I had an interesting discussion about the difference between these two paintings from a neurobiological perspective.

As we left the temple, we saw that the sun had dropped a bit.

We walked a few blocks, then grabbed a bus that headed up into the foothills.

At the end of the bus line, in the middle of nowhere, TO called for a taxi to take us the rest of the way into the hills to our ultimate destination, which was still a mystery to me.

I posed at the entrance to this mountain spa, then we walked toward the reception building.

Our room was off o the left in this picture (where the woman is).

After shedding our shows at the door, we went into a large, lovely suite with a dining area,…

…a sitting area by the window,…

…and our own private bathroom.

Out the window I saw a string of fish flags stretching across the stream.

This flags represent the famed Japanese koi (a kind of carp) and are now associated particularly with the Japanese national holiday Children’s Day. The blue and white ones are for boys, and the red and pink ones are for girls. The other colors are for adults. In Buddhist religion, the strength of these fish swimming through water represents humans swimming through the ocean of suffering without fear.

Our hostess arrived, and explained how everything worked around here.

We now had some welcoming soup,…

…but first we had to remove our clothes and don the robes that were provided.

After putting on our straw sandals,…

…we headed out for a self-guided tour of this beautiful place.

Right here, as I was taking a short movie of the surroundings, I dropped my camcorder into the fish pond.

Without waiting a moment and definitely without thinking, I jumped the fence and landed in the pond, wary of the large fish, and grabbed the camcorder. I got out as quickly as I got in, but still, by the time I climbed back over the fence, there were two female staff members ready with towels to dry me off.

They did so, and TO didn’t flinch or seem embarrassed at the situation. I hope he wasn’t. After all these years, he’s probably used to my antics. We hurried to the room where I removed the battery and memory card so they could dry as fast as possible, just in case there was a chance to save this video camera.

He headed back outside along the perilous bridge,…

…then onto a little path that led to the baths.

In the ante-room there were baskets where we placed our robes after disrobing. (Sorry for the foggy photo; it was humid in the room.)

The picture is a bit fuzzy because it was a little misty in the room. There was a scale if we wanted to weigh ourselves (which I didn’t) and an electric foot massager.

We passed through a glass door (after opening it, of course) and found a large room with two very large hot tubs. (No pictures allowed.) After washing at nearby sinks, we joined a couple other guys in the baths. They were warm and relaxing. Coulda slept.

After a long while, we decided to go outside and try the external bath, which was equally nice, with a little waterfall.

We dried, re-robed and returned to our room. Food started arriving, and TO started by showing me how to eat (as if anyone really has to).

Japanese food is one of the 5 great cuisines of the world. It is characterized by its delicacy and beautiful appearance, and this meal was no exception.

We had a wonderful time chatting about who knows what and eating every molecule put before us. I can only guess what this evening cost TO because he wouldn’t let me see the bill, much less contribute toward it.

I will end by simply showing you our smörgåsbord of food (though I suspect that using a Swedish word here is politically inappropriate):

保罗

Alone and Yet Alive

When I was in junior high (9th grade, I think), the schools music department, under the direction of Irwin McGuire (the band leader) put on what I think now is one of the most ambitious projects for kids that young: we performed Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado.” It was absolutely stupendous! I was supposed to play the piano in the orchestra, but when the score came, there was no piano part, so McGuire gave me the part of carrying the umbrella for the Mikado. Paul Uyesaka played Nanki Poo and Kathy Belkowski played Yum Yum. I believe it was Suzie Foss who sang this sad, angry song, “Alone and Yet Alive.” Ah, those were the days!

Anyway, I’m scratching out this brief note to let you know that on very short notice they terminated the Internet here due to construction. I may get it back by Aug. 19.

I’ve been to 4 supposed WiFi cafes, but the WiFi is so poor that it’s almost impossible to download or send email.

I shall return.

DM (for Douglas MacArthur, of course)

* * * * *

I wrote the message above on August 15. I went to an Internet café to upload it.

Now let me tell you the full story.

Some time a little over a week ago the Internet here started acted up – and down. I’d have Internet for 15 minutes, then it’d be gone, then back, etc. Then they posted a note in the elevators (where they usually post notes for dorm residents) saying that the Internet on the whole campus will be down until about August 18 due to renovation work being done in the IT building. Good grief.

Being a good sport, I figured I’d simply saunter over to one of the nearby coffee houses to check my email and do other Internet-dependent stuff. Right about the time I figured I should get around to checking my email, I came in contact with the person who traveled with me to Nanjing to be my translator. She is a graduate student in biology education at Beijing Normal University. This is a well-known and well-respected university that churns out pretty good teachers; many of our own come from there.

Wenyuan (pronounced when-you-en) and I agreed to have lunch near her school. She is truly one of the most delightful people I’ve met in China. She was hired temporarily by Intel to escort me to Shanghai and Nanjing (where I gave a keynote address to 400 science teachers), and we talked a lot about education in China. When we got back she sent me the nicest email saying that I changed her whole perspective, or something like that; whereas before she was discouraged that change here seems impossible, I gave her new hope and energy.

So Wenyuan sent me directions and I took the subway, then hopped on the right bus, rode 5 stops, got off, and waited for her to arrive. We walked about 50 meters to a nice restaurant where we had a wonderful lunch for about $20. I’m still amazed at how easy it is to get good food for relatively cheap prices – relative the American restaurants, of course.

On the back wall of the restaurant there were 3 interesting paintings.

My favorite is the one on the right where the wine is splashed up into a music staff. Very clever. I didn’t ask if it’s for sale but maybe I should have.

Here’s Wenyuan with her big smile, despite having big braces. (During the week in Shanghai and Nanjing it became a running joke about my reminding her to brush her teeth after every meal – a reminder that wasn’t anywhere close to being necessary as she is almost pathological about doing this.)

Our main dish in front of her was some pork meat coated with a light cornmeal (?) breading on top of yams, then steamed. It was delicious.

We also had a wonderful chilled papaya soup. It was light and a little sweet, just the right thing for a hot day.

These vegetable rolls were served with an interesting sauce that tasted like a combination of soy sauce, wasabi, and hot Chinese mustard. As soon as I get a chance I’m going to start experimenting to reproduce that sauce.

Other than the large beer we shared, the only other dish we had was an incredible combination of razor clams and thin slices of young bamboo shoots. For the life of me I have no idea why I didn’t take a picture of this my favorite dish.

Wenyuan wanted to treat (on what meager income she has in grad school) but I insisted on thanking her for being my caregiver for 5 days in those two cities.

I had hauled my computer with me on this trip, knowing that I’d certainly find a Wi-Fi place on the university campus. We left the restaurant and walked about ¼ mile through the campus to her dorm where she would pick up her computer.

On the way to her dorm we passed the fairly new Science Building.

Note the individual air conditioners. I’ve been remarking that almost all the apartment buildings in China, even many of the brand new ones, have individual air conditioners for each apartment. I’ve asked many times why this is so and the answer usually comes back that, unlike American apartment buildings where many of the places are for rent, the apartments in China are mostly for sale only. Electricity is not included and thus the AC’s are installed only upon the apartment owner’s request. Here there seems to be no reason not to have central AC. So now I’m wondering if there’s so little demand for central air conditioning in China that it’s not cost-efficient to manufacture the necessary equipment here. Before I leave China I will get to the bottom of this.

Security is tight in college dorms and I’m wondering if there is a co-ed dorm anywhere in China. I had to wait in the 10-square-foot “lobby” where there was one big fan blowing on another person waiting. I considered going over and sitting right next to her, but I thought she would consider that a little strange.

So I sat outside the range of the fan and used my bandana every minute or so to wide my face and head. Wenyuan told me that there is no AC in the dorm bedrooms and that it’s often difficult to sleep. She wondered if American university dorms had AC but I had to confess I didn’t know. Anyone out there know?

She returned with her computer and we stepped outside into the sweltering heat and humidity, Wenyuan with her umbrella and I with my bandana. She said we had two obvious choices: (1) there was a coffee shop within 2-3 minutes but the drinks there were mediocre; (2) about 8 minutes away was a better place with better drinks. Being in a bold mood, I suggested the latter.

When we got there, however, we (she) discovered that it was closed permanently.

We continued walking (and dripping) to the east gate of the university, then turned right toward a nearby McDonalds that she knew had Wi-Fi. Before we got there, however, we came to a place with the unusual name of something Apartotel.

Right off the lobby was a coffee shop that advertised free Wi-Fi. We went in, ordered a couple mango drinks, and opened our computers to get a little work done. We logged on but the Wi-Fi was so incredibly slow, I couldn’t download even one message and every URL I tried to reach timed out before I could do anything. All I wanted to do was get to my Verizon account so I could leave an automatic “vacation” response. We both finished our drinks without either of us getting to any Web page. As I returned the empty glasses to the girl behind the counter, I politely suggested that they stop advertising that they had Wi-Fi because it’s clear they do not. I said they had zero Wi-Fi, punctuating my statement with a hand rolled into a circle to emphasize the word “zero.”

After exiting this Apartotel, we turned right and went 30 meters to the McDonalds. I was in no mood to buy something at this point, so we went to the back, opened our computers, and tried to log on. At McDonalds, you get 30 minutes free Wi-Fi, but you have to enter your cell phone number and a little more info, then wait. Wenyuan was able to finally get logged on, but my computer never did. She let me use her computer to get to Verizon, but again the Wi-Fi was so slow, access timed out before I could get even one thing accomplished.

I gave up. We closed our computers and went to sit outside for a bit to talk about science education in China. After about 15 minutes some guy came and sat near us and started smoking a cigarette, so we left.

Wenyuan pointed across the street to where I would catch the bus to the subway and we parted. On the pedestrian overpass there were many vendors, illegally selling stuff to anyone who would buy.

I’ve been watching women’s shoes and I don’t think I’ve seen a duplicate pair. Is it possible that China actually has 600 million different kinds of women’s shoes?

On August 15, one of the teachers invited me to join him for dinner as his wife was out with her friends. I said I had to go to Renmin University and try to find Wi-Fi, but we came up with this plan: I would ride my bike to the dry cleaners to pick up my suit and 3 shirts, then call him when I was on my way back so we could rendezvous at Renmin’s west gate.

We met up and as he had no bike, I walked with him around the campus looking for a place to eat. I said I knew of an open café nearby but he wanted to introduce me to the International Students Café, so we headed off in the heat and humidity, dripping as usual. We walked and walked and walked. Zhou is in his late 20s but I am not. We finally got to the place he wanted only to find that it’s closed for another couple weeks.

We walked some more but his next choice also was closed. We finally ended up at a Muslim restaurant upstairs where the AC was barely noticeable. While he ordered, I walked around the pace to find a relatively cool place under one of the ceiling fans, but all the choice spots were taken.

The food was good, we ate, then departed, him on foot and I on my bike. I went to the café that I knew was open and had heard it had free Wi-Fi. As I was locking my bike, a friend from the park, a 23-year old grad student majoring in logic, came up and we went in together.

We sat down at a table near an electrical outlet, ordered a couple drinks (fruit juice for her, iced café latte for me), and I opened my computer while she took out her drawing pad. The waitress gave me the password to sign on and I was able to get to my Outlook page. Progress! I started downloading the 71 messages from the past week. After about 15 minutes a few messages appeared, and I noticed that it was downloading at a speed measured in bytes (B), not kilobytes (KB). I sat there for 30 minutes more, hoping progress would eventually yield a few more messages. I gave up on Outlook and instead went to my Verizon account to create a vacation reply. As before, the Wi-Fi was so slow, pages timed out before I could get to the page I needed.

I gave up, something I don’t do lightly. I will now remain without Internet connection until it’s restored here. At the last “Internet” café I was able to glimpse a short email from my son who said he’s beginning to worry as he’s had no response from me for a while.

I hope you all have deduced that I am alive and well, just in China.

保罗

Once More Unto the Breach

I really needed someone at Henry V’s level. My tooth problem is back, but this time I could get no help from my teacher friend who has a student who is a dentist at the main dental hospital in this area. She was reluctant to go back to this parent for more favors; besides, she went home for the summer and left her cell phone here in Beijing.

So I went to my main translator (the woman who is assigned to help me when I need it) and she said going through proper channels could be tedious. (Yeah, tell me about it!) People generally go on-line to make an appointment, and then the hospital decides whom you will see during that specific visit. She went on-line for me to make an appointment, and the first available one was in 2 months. She said this was typical and should she make the appointment?

I said I didn’t want to wait 2 months to see a dentist and that my only option was to ask you-know-who to help. I said I didn’t want to bother her with such trivial stuff, but my translator encouraged me to do so, saying that she would be happy to help. So, after a long meeting that ended at 6:30 p.m., I showed my medical book (which summarizes my last visit) to you-know-who, and she immediately called the president of the hospital. Within minutes, my translator got a text from someone, then she asked me for my passport number (which I know by heart, fortunately).

An hour later my translator called and asked if tomorrow morning was OK.

It’s now the next morning, and my translator’s husband will pick me up at 7:30 to drive his wife and me to the hospital.

This is China.

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Arrivederci Roma

If you’re under the impression, from the absence of posts recently, that nothing’s been happening on this side of the Pacific, be assured that nothing could be further from the truth. It’s been hoppin’ so much I that suitable time and energy haven’t overlapped for a while. Even now, sitting in my room on the 17th floor of a hotel in Nanjing, it’s a struggle to stay awake. I’m the keynote presenter at a conference tomorrow for 400 science teachers, principals, and others, and I’ve just now (8:30 p.m.) finished my PPT for the 2-hour talk. (They don’t call me “last-minute” Cammer for nothing!) But I’ll get to all that in due course.

Japan – Day 2, Part 3

My first trip to Japan was in the late 1980s. It was a business trip relating to one of my company’s clients, and the business counterparts in Japan were the best hosts I’d ever seen. The main host and coordinator was, of course, TO. We stayed at a large multi-star hotel (Intercontinental?) and to make us feel at home, our hosts treated us to a lavish dinner of Western food. After dinner, TO and I were chatting about unimportant stuff when he asked me how I liked the dinner. Remember that I had just met this gentlemen, but in my usual straightforward style, I told him that the food was delicious but that I didn’t fly thousands of miles to have steak and that my reference would be to eat only traditional Japanese food for the rest of the visit – which we did. The irony of this history will strike home in a moment.

After the pleasant visit to the lake and the Buddhist temple, TO dropped me off at my hotel where I killed time resting until he came to get me for dinner. He picked me up at 5:00 and we discussed where we should eat. He said his daughter recommended a restaurant nearby and did I want to try it? I said sure, so we headed toward the door of the hotel, passing a prominent bronze statue that I somehow was able to miss in my 25 previous crossings of the lobby.

Cruising down the street, we saw the typical Japanese sidewalk scene: a bicycle here and there, not overly crowded, clean. It’s fortunate that the bicycle density here is not as high as Beijing’s because, due to the narrower streets, they ride on the relatively narrow sidewalks.

Being the local bicycle helmet Nazi, I was tempted to accost this mother to tell her that she, too, needs to wear a helmet if she wants her child to do so in 10 years.

This woman’s car was barely large enough to hold her, but she still found room for a bunch of dashboard dolls. Are these cabbage patch things?

I couldn’t help but notice this line of people waiting patiently, politely, and uncrowdedly for a bus, a stark contrast to bus stops in Beijing.

We arrived at the restaurant, which turned out to be a small Italian place.

After a couple weeks in Mexico many decades ago, my wife and I decided that on our last night we had had enough Mexican food, so we went to a Chinese restaurant in Mexico City. Sitting in a place with Chinese décor and smells, then being welcomed by a Chinese guy speaking perfect Spanish, felt weird to both of us. In a similar vein, I think there’s something weird about seeing a menu for presumably Italian food written in Japanese I couldn’t understand and priced in Japanese yen that I couldn’t convert. Maybe it’s just me, but such cultural juxtapositions cause me to stop and take note with a smile worthy of a world citizen.

The hostess informed us that they wouldn’t open for another half hour, so we took off to cruise the neighborhood, saying we’d be back when they opened. Across the street I saw a small shop that I assumed was a florist, given all the plants and flowers positioned outside.

It turned out to be a bakery.

At one time Japan had the highest incidence of smokers in the developed world; over half the adult population smoked cigarettes. I don’t know if that statistic still holds, but cigarette machines are fairly common on the sidewalks.

We saw one of the many Korean restaurants in Japan. Korean food is popular here, and the Japanese have a special relationship with South Korea.

I know I’m going to get this next bit mixed up because it’s been a while since I heard the story, but in Japan there is a big celebration in a family when a young boy comes of age. The parents buy a small but fancy statue for the boy to mark the occasion, and there are specialized stores in Japan that sell these statues. We came upon one while we were killing time, and TO took me in to explain the custom. This was a particularly expensive one.

While in the store, we talked about this ceremony, and only as an aside did TO mention that his statue was destroyed during the bombing. I believe this is the only time TO has made reference to “the war.” I wanted to ask him lots of questions about that time, but chose, wisely, I think, to resist the temptation.

We got back to the trattoria shortly after it had opened but we still were too late to get one of the two tables by the window.

The hostess told us that the best seats in the place were at the counter, so we sat there, watching the kitchen staff finish off dishes.

Only after we were seated were we told that the chef was off that night and the only meal they had available was a prezzo fisso that had been arranged in advance by the chef. We accepted and proceeded to work our way through several courses of delicious fare.

The waitress recommended a red wine for me and I ended up having several large glasses. Because wine disagrees with TO (but not vice versa), he had 3 large cocktails of some sort. TO occasionally looked up words in his dictionary…

…and frequently insisted I finish his course because he couldn’t. (Only to keep from insulting him did I acquiesce, of course.)

Thanks to that unique combination of Italian ambience and food, a “little” alcohol, and the best friendship, we had a rip-roaring time. We ate, joked, and laughed for hours, but it sailed by fast. I was sorry to say goodbye to that evening.

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